The present application relates to the field of software technologies, and in particular, to techniques for loading a terminal application (app). In conventional systems, multiple sub-apps are generally nested in a certain main app that is installed on a terminal. As such, multiple sub-apps can be selectively loaded in an interface of a certain main app. For example, when a user triggers a starting action on a certain main app nested with a plurality of sub-apps, all sub-apps nested in the main app are generally loaded during the process of starting the main app. The loading process is a process in which application programs on a hard disk of a terminal are loaded into a memory of the terminal. For example, the assumption can be that a set of sub-apps included in a certain main app is: {sub-app 1, sub-app 2, . . . , and sub-app n}. Then, the terminal can load sub-app 1, sub-app 2, . . . , and sub-app n in sequence when a user triggers a starting action on the main app. This loading process causes a problem in that all sub-apps included in a certain main app need to be loaded in sequence during the process of starting the main app. As such, the loading process can be relatively time-consuming, and the process of opening the main app can be slowed down.